I cover the video game industry, write about gamers, and review video games.
You can follow me on Twitter and hit me up there if you have any questions or comments you'd like to chat about.
Disclosure: Many of the video games I review were provided as free review copies. This does not influence my coverage or reviews of these games.
I do not own stock in any of the companies I cover. I do not back any Kickstarter projects related to video games. I do not fund anyone in the industry on Patreon.

Election day was a big win for the president, Democrats in the Senate and Republicans in the House, and for advocates of gay marriage in Maine and Maryland.

It was also a big win for an issue that’s been gaining support at a surprising clip over the past decade or so: the end to marijuana prohibition.

In three states—Washington, Colorado, and Massachusetts—efforts to liberalize marijuana laws succeeded last night. In Washington and Colorado, the new laws enacted go even further than past efforts. In these two states, fully regulated recreational pot use has now been approved by voters.

“The decisive victories last night will go a long way toward helping more elected officials to understand that marijuana reform is a mainstream, majority-support position,” Tom Angell, the chairman of Marijuana Majority, tells me. “Too many politicians who realize that the marijuana laws are broken and need to change are reluctant to speak out publicly or take legislative action because they mistakenly assume that will be marginalized or attacked as “soft on crime.” But as these votes showed, and as the Gallup poll revealing nationwide majority support for marijuana legalization demonstrates, the public is ready for marijuana reform and will reward elected officials who take action toward that end.”

While not every state pushing for legalization met with success—Oregon followed on the heels of the failed 2010 Prop 19 in California—more will likely jump on the bandwagon in coming years.

Angell thinks California will likely try again in 2014 or 2016, though the size of that state makes any campaign for full legalization there expensive and daunting.

“I do think you will see polling support for legalization go up significantly now that Colorado and Washington have taken the first step and shown that legalization is possible,” he adds. “Other states to look to would be Massachusetts, which decriminalized marijuana possession in 2008 and passed medical marijuana this year; Rhode Island, which could well be the first state to enact legalization via a state legislature as opposed to by voter initiative; and Vermont.”

And Oregon hopefully, Angell says. With a better organized and better funded campaign, next time pro-legalization advocates could see a win.

The big question now looming over states with liberalized marijuana laws is what the federal government and the Obama Administration will do.

“Ninety-nine out of a hundred marijuana arrests are performed under state and local, and not federal, laws, so these measures will effectively protect citizens in Colorado and Washington from being arrested for marijuana possession,” Angell tells me.

Perhaps just as importantly Angell points out that while the Obama administration came out forcefully against California’s Prop 19 in 2010, no similar move was made in 2012. Angell is optimistic. “It seems that even the Obama administration may be starting to realize that standing in the way of majority-supported, much-needed marijuana law reform is bad politics.”

For one thing, at least for now marijuana consumers in Washington and Colorado can rest easy.

“Once the state legislators conclude their business of crafting new state policy, which shouldn’t be all too complicated, if they refer to existing models of alcohol and tobacco, state and local police will abide by the new law, period,” Neill Franklin, the Executive Director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) tells me. “I believe that the new law should prohibit state and local authorities from acting in concert with federal authorities where there would be conflict with the new state laws. Local authorities being recruited by President Nixon during the onset of the drug war in the early seventies is partially the blame for what’s wrong with drug enforcement today.”

With law enforcement focused on stopping violent crime rather than arresting marijuana users, police and other public servants will see a host of new opportunities opened up to them according to Franklin, including better community relations.

“There will be far fewer reasons for racial profiling and unjustified searches of one’s person, places and affects,” he notes, adding that we’ll also see “less money for criminal gangs and less involvement in the violent drug trade. This is another public safety win. This will be one heavy blow to the cartel in these two states.”

There’s a lot of money flowing into the War on Drugs each year, and a lot more money spent making sure it’s never won.

Still, all that money can create incentives to keep the machine humming. Many peoples’ livelihoods are directly impacted by the number of prison beds filled or the number of arrests made.

Even so, ending the War on Drugs would be a net gain, even to the people working in law enforcement LEAP’s Franklin tells me.

“There will be some benefactors who lose out,” he says, “but law enforcement is not one. Law enforcement will benefit. No cops or prison guards will be laid off. There is plenty of neglected police work to be done. The streets and prisons will become safer. Crowded prisons are dangerous prisons and they breed a more savvy and dangerous criminal who will eventually return to the streets. Will there be less overtime? Possibly. Will there be less property and funds seized? I certainly hope so. But this is all good stuff for the people and the community. Tensions between police and citizens should relax some, making way for improved relationships.”

He adds, “I could care less and so will most citizens. The benefits for police and community greatly out weigh any costs. The industrial hemp industry alone, which we currently import from the likes of Canada, will be enormous for our economic growth.”

Harvard’s Miron has written extensively about marijuana prohibition, and tends to be less bullish about the economic growth we can expect to see from legalization.

“For marijuana only,” Miron wrote in a column at CNBC, “the magnitudes are modest, so it is easy to exaggerate this benefit.”

But really, that may be beside the point.

“In a free society, the presumption must be that people can smoke, snort, eat or inject whatever they wish, so long as they do not harm others,” Miron argues. “The burden of proof should rest on those who would ban marijuana, not those who want it legal. That burden has never been met.”

So far the DEA, has remained cagey following the ballot successes in Colorado and Washington.

“My sense is that it is unlikely the federal government is going to allow states one by one to unilaterally decriminalize marijuana,” Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said after the results were in.

“The Drug Enforcement Administration’s enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged,” the DEA said in a press statement. “In enacting the Controlled Substances Act, Congress determined that marijuana is a Schedule I control[ed] substance. The Department of Justice is reviewing the ballot initiatives and we have no additional comment at this time.”

If these measures are taken to the Supreme Court, it could end badly for the anti-prohibitionist movement given the current line-up of justices.

All told, while we may be approaching a tipping point, and while we can hope for a more amenable Obama Administration in his second term in office, the fight remains an uphill battle.

The combination of a controversial new approach to regulating substances and tens of billions of dollars means this process will likely drag on for years to come.

Nor does the success of full-blown legalization in Colorado and Washington mean that we’ll see a hard shift away from medical marijuana measures.

I asked Marijuana Majority’s Tom Angell if the success in those states signifies a shift away from medical marijuana arguments toward full legalization. Not exactly, he told me.

“I think the two-track model will continue for some time with activists leading efforts to legalize marijuana in places where polling suggests significant support, while advocates in other places try for the somewhat easier win of allowing medical marijuana and at least getting ill people off the battlefield of the “war on drugs.”"

The degree to which all of these efforts may succeed or fail may come down to a question of demographics. Young people of all political backgrounds tend to be far more supportive of liberalized drug laws in general.

But while that may mean that the end to the War on Drugs may simply boil down to a long, frustrating wait, the issue will almost certainly continue to come up in the intervening years, as more and more states continue to at least nudge the ball in the right direction.

It seems that even four years after the words were popularized by the Obama campaign, hope and change may still have a role to play after all. But so will doubt and despair.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

The question is whether they will feel the same way when they get older. The older I get, the more I favor decriminalization in its various forms. Not sure if that’s true or not for other folks when/if they have kids. (On the other hand, fewer are having kids, so there’s that.)

The war on drugs is a sham and will always be one of the biggest wastes of money in our nations history. It costs taxpayers millions if not billions a year and has not made a dent in the supply of drugs. If I walk out my door right now (in new York) I can get any amount and any kind of marijuana i want within 100 yards. It is a stupid, friviolus expense and I for one am so glad America is not willing to tolerate it anymore.

Bottom line is as long as I do not harm other people I should be free, in the freest nation the world has ever seen , free to ingest whatever I want. Marijuana botanically is simply not toxic enough to harm you, you will never O.D. and you will never get cancer from it. The whole reason it was made illegal is the same reason Moonshine is illegal, because you can’t tax something you can make in your backyard. Then the government released tons and tons of propaganda in an attempt to demonize marijuana and attempt to make themselves look good by portraying marijuana as this horrible substance that they were saving America from, When in reality they couldn’t tax it so they made it illegal. I am so glad for Colorado and Washington and I hope many more states are to follow.

California has had medical dispensaries acting as marijuana retail outlets for many years, surviving three presidents so far (Clinton, Bush, and Obama), and they are taxed and regulated at the state level. While there have been federal raids, overall the impact of the raids barely registers on the radar in terms of the existence of a widespread medical marijuana business industry that sets up shop, has a regular flow of customers, pays $100 million in sales tax to the state each year, etc. It’s not a perfect comparison, of course, but it’s informative with regard to what the feds can really do about state by state legalization efforts. If California can maintain hundreds of marijuana dispensaries and pay taxes and federal income taxes etc for more than a decade, despite overt federal animosity toward the situation, then it bodes well for the future of state attempts to tax and regulate marijuana more broadly.

Another point to consider is that the reactions and statements from the feds — including a former Obama “drug warrior” who says this will lead to a major conflict between the states and feds, as well as the quotes about how the feds will continue to enforce federal marijuana prohibition — is almost identical to federal statements and reactions in 1923 when New York repealed the state laws enforcing federal alcohol prohibition. The feds freaked out, insisted that New York was in danger of causing major conflicts, and promised that federal prohibition of alcohol would continue to be enforced. We all know how that turned out — and the move by states to cease enforcement of prohibition was part of the drive toward ending alcohol prohibition once and for all. Because really the feds don’t have the time or money to start a serious conflict with the states, and in fact the politicians realize the potential dire consequences for them and their jobs if they are seen too aggressively targeting a state and its citizens.

The Colorado law allows for the possession and growing of certain amounts of marijuana by adults, and it is unlikely that citizens in that state will ever face actual federal scrutiny or arrest for having and using marijuana. Removing the state and local criminalization has for all intents and purposes ended marijuana prohibition in those states, and it’s unlikely the state and businesspersons will look at that situation and not find some way to get involved in profiting and taxing it etc. With two states taking the plunge, and when we see that the sky doesn’t fall and in fact things are better because of the new laws, other states will follow suit, and the feds will need to face reality and admit that it’s time to end the moronic, unjust policy of prohibition.

(Full disclosure: My wife, Karen O’Keefe, works as director of state policy for the Marijuana Policy Project, which provided most of the funding for the Colorado initiative. I worked at MPP for several years in media relations and commercials/campaign ad production.)

A couple of points. One, I worked at the premier drug and alcohol treatment facility in the north west for 5 years as a detox nurse. How many patients did we have for marijuana during that time? Zero. The worst, most damaging drug to individuals and families? Alcohol, by far, with 4 deaths during that time of alcohol patients at our facility alone, and one university professor who lost her short term memory forever, and had to transferred to a long term care facility because of long term alcohol addiction. Two…..After that I spent about 10 years in state prison systems working as an R.N. in Oregon and California. Many, many people, normal children of middle class families, are incarcerated every year, at great expense to society, abused inside the walls, and ultimately so negatively affected by their time inside that their lives, and potential are destroyed. Stop this insane prohibition now.

It costs billions during a time of needed fiscal restraint, yet is a total flop It criminalizes and persecutes harmless people, often wrecking what could have been productive lives. It demoralizes and confuses our police forces, which used to go after real criminals, not pot smokers. It’s totally irrational since alcohol and tobacco are tied to millions of deaths, yet marijuana to none so far as I know. (Maybe someone choked on a joint somewhere.) It fills our prisons with the nonviolent, turning them into criminals, so we have more people incarcerated than China or Iran. It actually encourages criminality and gang violence – with more drugs on the street than ever. You’d think we’d have learned something during Prohibition but I guess we are a stupid people.

But of course, it’s a boon to Prison Industry, which loads bribes into Washington and State Capitols, and even worries that decriminalization would lead to lesser profits and recidivism.

With the nation falling off a fiscal cliff, can’t we do something better with our money than this farce?

I admit I may be unduly focused on taxes, but the federal tax laws still don’t allow legal marijuana businesses to deduct their business expenses. It’s a rule that can destroy these businesses. I just posted this today, but this isn’t a new issue:

State and federal legislators need to beat voters to the punch and decriminalize marijuana/ legalize it in moderation, before voters pass very extreme legalization measures. Sorry the private prison industry will lose revenue. And the right wing talks about small government and liberty, then they fight tooth and nail for the right to imprison people who do no harm, in addition to being in charge of every uterus in the country. I’ll be so glad when the dinosaurs are finally extinct….

Abortion is a tough one, mainly because both sides adopt hate filled rhetoric that only causes each side to dig in their heels harder.

Pro-Lifers prefer to advocate for the rights of the unborn but living, pro-choicers prefer to advocate only for the woman.

Make no doubt about it, abortion is the extermination of human life. It is not something I think we as a species should be complacent about. The fetus may or may not feel pain, but you are robbing the unborn child of so much potential, it will never experience the wonders of life that we get to. There are special cases to consider, but to abort a child just because one doesn’t think you are ready for the responsibility is not something I would advocate for.

On the other hand, countries that do have legal abortions tend to have fewer abortions, and certainly safer ones. Something that pro lifers need to consider is that, much like marijuana and prostitution, making something illegal is not going to make it go away. Making abortion illegal would only serve to increase the number of unsafe ones, and make the subject more taboo, and not something I would advocate for either.

I have no problem with marijuana. I think it has passed the test as one drug that does not lead to harm. Because it’s illegal, you have to go to the same people that sell coke and smack and no telling what else. Politicians and the government profit from the fact that marijuana is illegal. It drives the price of drugs up. Do you think that the cartels want legalization? Do you think the owners of privatized prisons (a disturbing trend) want legalization? Do you think that the DEA which is an industry unto itself wants legalization? The DEA and the cartels thrive because of each other.

1. Do you know how this will work with residential states, will Oregon residents be able to go across into Wash. to purchase, and just “use” in the state of WA?

2. How will pricing work? Is it going to be like gas and gas stations currently, pretty much that every station with in X amount of miles has to be withing X amount of each other. Also in the future, do you think we will be able to check the market in the morning, like we do now with products such as gold, and corn.

3. How will this affect people incarcerated in those states. For possession or sale of marijuana? Will they be freed, or reduced sentenced you think.

Going off of Mark’s comment about the Feds. I am thinking that if they do go after states, they may do like what they did with upping the drinking age, years ago. MADD went to them explained there problem, then Feds start to go to states, about upping the drinking age, the states that did not comply such as WI. Or didn’t comply as fast, I believe the Feds said Ok that’s fine but if you’re not changing the age, then we are not going to give you the federal funds for highways. (no pun intended)

These are all questions that will need to be resolved during the crafting of legislation, but I suspect it will be very similar to the laws governing alcohol and will not (in WA and CO) require any specific residence, leading invariably to pot tourism, a problem (and a perk) that places like Denmark face already.

It seems to me that the legalization of marijuana would help both government and the taxpayers. For instance, “Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004,” reports that 12.7 percent of state inmates and 12.4 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for drug violations are serving time for marijuana offenses. Combining these percentages with separate US Department of Justice (DOJ) statistics on the total number of state and federal drug prisoners (BJS October 2005 Bulletin: “Prisoners in 2004″ — NCJ 210677) suggests that there are now approximately 33,655 state inmates and 10,785 federal inmates incarcerated for marijuana offenses.